The Right Offer to the Right Person

By Derek Palmer, Managing Director, Executive Vice President, International, Tickets.com

In today's economic climate everyone is focused on providing the right offer to the right patron at the right time. Allow me to share with you my perspective.

Technology obviously plays a large part in this effort. The days of brochures and ushers asking patrons to fill out “contact me” cards in the lobby have given way to complex XRM systems that overlay pricing models and demographics to try and predict and (more importantly) shape consumer behavior. However, the thought process is the same and still seems to rely a great deal on the quantity and quality of data. I would argue it is even more important to have a plan of what you want to do with the data.

Organizations without clear goals for data management risk a condition I have heard best described as "paralysis by analysis" and a waste of valuable time and money.

Before investing in technologies to help manage your data you would do well to ask a few key questions:

1) What are we trying to achieve?
2) What are the key drivers and KPIs that we will use to measure our effectiveness?
3) What are our success criteria?

These are fairly simple questions and therefore it would follow that there are simple answers: We want to sell more tickets and make more money... But how do you achieve that seemingly obvious goal? And what if one doesn't necessarily lead to another? More importantly how do you ensure that you are connecting to the right consumers in the way they wish to be communicated with at the frequency at which they are willing to communicate with you?

Once you have communicated with your target audience, what is your call to action? Too often the immediate response to a slow moving event is to offer a discount to get “butts in seats”, if the goal is to sell more tickets, but does it necessarily make you more money in the long run?

There are many new technologies that allow venues to focus on more nuanced strategies around yield management. Stored Value integrations with merchandise and concession providers offer venues the opportunity to be extremely flexible in their offerings to consumers and in a targeted manner. Instead of giving someone a £10.00 discount on a ticket why not offer them £10.00 worth of value towards purchases at your concession stands or gift shops. In addition to the incremental revenue opportunities, guess what else you get? That’s right-more data. But in this case it is extremely specific data about that individual consumer and their spending habits.

Introducing Dynamic Pricing program for your events is another approach to yield management. Some people will read that sentence to mean “raise ticket prices as high as possible” but in fact a Dynamic Pricing scenario allows just as many discount opportunities and in this case it is based on data. More importantly it allows precision discounting - just because one person in section 400 will only buy if the ticket is £10.00 under face value doesn’t mean the person next to them won’t buy at £2.00 under face value. It goes back to the right offer to the right person.

St. Louis Cardinals Celebrate “Whitey Herzog Day” with Interactive “Cards Cash” Promotions Using UpTix™ Stored Value Technology from Tickets.com

Tickets.com is facilitating the expansion of stored value ticketing throughout Major League Baseball via its versatile UpTix Stored Value service.

The innovative technology, which loads cash value above admission price onto single tickets, can be customized and individually branded for each client. The St. Louis Cardinals promote it under the name “Cards Cash,” and on July 31, it was part of a pre-game celebration—in front of a sold-out crowd at Busch Stadium—honoring the team’s legendary former manager Whitey Herzog. Missouri’s Governor deemed it “Whitey Herzog Day.”

At the end of the ceremony—which saluted his 1,281 wins as a manager and his 2010 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame—Herzog’s No. 24 was retired. Thus, the evening’s interactive Cards Cash promotions were themed around the number. Ticket-holders for every seat number 24 throughout the entire ballpark received $5 in Cards Cash value to spend on food, beverages, or merchandise during the game.

Additionally, each person seated in section 240 received $5 Cards Cash per ticket. An add-on to the section 240 promotion granted every fan a $5 bonus per strike-out in the top of the 3rd inning—there was one, giving each ticket-holder a total of $10 in Cards Cash.

More than 75% of ticket holders that received “24”-themed Cards Cash dollars redeemed all or part of the windfall. The evening proved an overall success for the team with a worthy 11-1 victory over Pittsburgh.

“It was great to see UpTix working in real-time, generating excitement for fans with Cards Cash awards tied to an on-field event,” said John Rizzi, Senior Vice President Product Management and Strategy, Tickets.com. “We know that purchasing stored value tickets is a benefit to both the team and the fans. It was a great way to commemorate Whitey Herzog and connect with the fans. We look forward to more interactive programs of this type.”

UpTix technology works by allowing concessions and merchandise credits to be pre-loaded onto a ticket through its unique bar code, and folded into the initial purchase price of the ticket. The embedded value above the admission price is scannable by vendors throughout the ballpark for the duration of the game—and fans holding such tickets never have to reach for their wallets.

Tickets.com Product Spotlight: Uptix Stored Value

Uptix broadens the traditional ticket function of event access by securely enabling individual tickets to store other kinds of data, such as cash value. These “loaded” tickets can then be used for redemption at various points of sale in your venue (e.g., concessions, retail stands). You can now offer a complete entertainment experience with a single event ticket!

Uptix™ is jointly developed and provided in partnership with Givex®. Load, scan, get, go!

MLB Cardinals to Introduce Stored-Value Ticket Technology

SportsBusiness Journal
Don Muret

The MLB Cardinals are introducing stored-value technology this season at Busch Stadium, a ballpark admission with credit to buy food, drink and merchandise loaded into the bar code and folded into the ticket price. Delaware North Sportservice, the Cardinals' concessionaire, is a partner in the project after installing a new Micros point-of-sale system to accept the technology. The Cardinals signed a separate deal with Givex, a stored value vendor whose clients include the MLB Giants. Cardinals officials declined to reveal the investment cost.

Branding stored value as Cards Cash, the team plans to offer four loaded ticket promotions for '10, including a $5 credit folded into the outfield loge box seats, a season ticket priced at $30 per game, said Cardinals VP/Ticket Sales & Services Joe Strohm. With those tickets priced the same as in '09, it is basically $5 in free value, he said. The new Holliday Pack, a seven-game mini-plan named for Cardinals LF Matt Holliday, includes a $7 credit for each game. The team has not determined the ticket price for that package, Strohm said. Individual and group buyers have the option to load $10 onto their tickets, but will receive an actual value of $12 in credit as the Cardinals push the technology. They are the first big league team locally to launch stored value.

Stored-value has been in place since the Phillies launched their program at Citizens Bank Park in '04, and more than one-third of MLB teams now provide the ticketing option. The Cardinals have always been a proponent of loaded tickets but did not previously have the infrastructure in place to accommodate the technology at Busch Stadium, Strohm said. "We definitely think this will take off here as it has in other markets," he said.